


The One Where There's a Kid

by boxoftheskyking



Category: Leverage
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Loss of Parent(s), Multi, pre-kidfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 09:12:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7634488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxoftheskyking/pseuds/boxoftheskyking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oh shit Hardison has a kid.</p>
<p>Pure fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Where There's a Kid

**Author's Note:**

> un-beta'd, unedited, totally just for fun. I just like the idea.

The guy who comes into the pub looks every inch like a potential client. He’s young, really young, actually. Maybe twenty, tops, with mussed up hair, bags under his eyes, something staining the hem of his t-shirt. He also smells.

Nate’s already half-turned in his chair to greet him when, surprisingly, he makes a beeline for the table where Hardison and Parker are sitting.

“You Alec Hardison?” he asks.

Hardison gives him a once-over, analyzing the potential threat. “Who’s asking? You okay, man?”

The kid seems to sway, a little, and Parker kicks and empty chair out in his direction.

“I’m Tyler. Brant. Um. Amelia’s brother.”

Hardison looks over to Parker, who looks equally clueless.

“Nice to meet you, Tyler. You sure you’re in the right place?”

“You’re Alec Hardison. You used to date my sister.”

Hardison’s eyes go wide. “Oh, shit. Amelia. Okay, to be fair, I don’t think you could call that dating, because I only saw her, like, three times in my life—this was after we had that fight, a couple years, you know, back when we weren’t— Yeah, okay, you remember.”

Parker’s face has gone stormy, and Hardison swallows and turns back to the kid. “Look, man, she called it off with me, and I ain’t seen or heard—”

“Amelia’s dead,” the kid says. He picks up a salt shaker and fiddles with it, looking down at his lap. 

“Oh, shit.” Hardison leans in, looking serious again. “I’m real sorry, man. She was a really good person.”

“What happened?” Parker asks. 

“Car accident. Two months ago. And I’ve been trying, man, I really have, but I’m gonna have to drop out of school and I’ve already been working two jobs, and you know it was just the two of us, and I don’t think I can do it anymore, and—”

“Whoa, whoa, hey,” Hardison holds on to the kid’s shoulder, beckoning the others over with a nod. “It’s gonna be okay. You need something to eat? Something to drink?”

The kid rubs at his eyes. “Vodka. With— No, just vodka.”

“There’s no way he’s twenty-one,” Eliot mutters as Nate swings by the bar.

“We’re criminals,” Parker whispers back, too loudly. The kid, Tyler, gives her an alarmed look.

Once they are all settled around the table and Tyler has drained half of his vodka on the rocks, Hardison gently prompts him. “Why don’t you start at the beginning? Tell us what happened.”

Tyler looks uncomfortable. “You sure? I mean, do you want all of them to hear everything?”

“Guys, this is Tyler. I went out with his sister a few times back before Parker and Eliot and I got our shit together.”

He braces for some reaction, either from the team or from the kid, but he just looks relieved. “So it’s not just you. That’s good. You’ve got partners.”

“Yeah, man. Um. Thanks?”

“Right. So, Amelia had a kid. Has a kid. Had. The kid’s still alive. Um.”

Hardison gives him a sympathetic look. “So you’re taking care of a kid by yourself? Man, that’s rough.”

Tyler looks at him for a moment, waiting. 

Nate cuts in. “So what can we help with? The other person in the accident . . .”

“Died.”

“Okay.” They all wait, but he says nothing. Nate clears his throat. “You do know what we do, right?”

The kid blinks at him. “Honestly, I don’t know who you are. I came to see him.” He points at Hardison. “To tell him about his kid. I can’t do it anymore, man, I’m gonna have to give her up.”

Parker’s glass hits the floor and shatters. 

“My— Uh.” Hardison’s mouth works around nothing for a minute. “Did you say _my_  kid?”

Tyler nods. “Josie. She’s fifteen months.”

For once, Hardison wishes his mental math worked a little slower. The timing checks out.

“Listen, I was Amelia’s rebound. After that other guy, the fiance who dumped her. How do you know—?”

“She looks like you. Kinda. I mean she looks— She’s not white. And Amelia is. Was. So was Craig.”

“Craig,” Parker mutters to herself. “Shitty name.”

Hardison looks over to Sophie, but she’s just watching him, waiting for him to react. Eliot is looking down at his hands, tension in his shoulders. Nate just looks confused.

“Do you— I mean do you have a picture?”

Tyler pulls out his wallet and hands over a small, creased photo. Hardison exhales like all the air has been punched out of him and covers his mouth.

“You were saying you have to give her up?” Nate asks.

“I can’t - Look, I’m nineteen. Okay? I got nothing. I work two jobs, I got my GED but there’s not much available, and I just started going to the tech school. I can’t afford good childcare, I can hardly afford to feed her, and I’m almost never at home, and—  I can’t be a dad. I can’t be a dad right now, and we have no one. When Amelia died I said I’d take her because what choice did I have, but I just met her, okay? It’s not like I’ve been there, Amelia lived in Chicago and I did some time so I wasn’t around. I’ve had CPS called on me twice in the past month, okay, because our water got turned off and so the daycare lady said she smelled and—”

“Okay, okay,” Nate holds up a hand to stop him.

“I just want her to be okay. I talked to a legal aid person. Counselor person. And she said I should find you. Amelia always knew Josie was yours—once she was born, I mean—but she said you had some kind of dangerous life and didn’t know where to find you. She probably could have, but she was so excited to be a mom she didn’t want to make anything complicated.”

Hardison hasn’t looked away from the photo. “What are your options?” he asks.

“Either you take her or she goes into foster care. I’ve got nowhere to go.”

He can see Parker stiffen beside him, but Hardison takes a minute before he says anything. “Where is she now?”

“With my neighbor. We live here in Portland, actually.”

Hardison has to shut his eyes at that, how close he’s been, how he’s probably walked right past and never known—

“I have to talk to my partners. Okay? Can you give me one more night?”

“Yeah, of course. Of course. I’ll come back tomorrow. I’ll bring Josie too, if that’s okay?”

Hardison nods. Tyler rises. “How much do I owe you for the drink?”

Nate waves him off. “On the house. Friends and family discount.”

Sophie gives an almost-hysterical giggle until Eliot nudges her.

After a moment, Hardison rises to shake Tyler’s hand. “Take care, man. See you tomorrow.”

He stays standing until the kid’s gone into the night, hands flexing at his sides. When he looks back at the team, they’re all staring at him like they’re expecting him to start crying or laughing or burst into flames. Sophie is the one who stands first and puts her arms around him.

“Holy shit,” he whispers into her shoulder and lets her hold him.

“Seriously,” she murmurs back. “It’s going to be okay, Alec. Just breathe.”

He pulls back from her after a long few minutes and wipes at his eyes. “Do you guys want to do this here or at home.” He’s not looking at them, but it’s obviously directed at Parker and Eliot.

“Here,” Parker says. “The drive would be awkward.”

“Okay. Nate, Sophie, can you give us the room for a little bit?”

Nate nods and goes to shoo the last stragglers out the door. When everyone else is gone, Hardison turns to the others, still standing.

“I forgot to give his photo back.”

“Can I—” Eliot’s voice is rough, uneven. “Can I see?”

Hardison hands it over, and Eliot’s hand is shaking when he takes it. He covers his mouth and says, shakily. “She really does look like you, man.”

Hardison looks to Parker. “You freaking out?”

“A little.”

“How bad?”

She thinks. “It’s not something that was on my radar of things I’ll need to deal with eventually. I always assumed I’d never— there’d never been a kid. Kids.”

“We don’t do this if we aren’t all in. Right?” Hardison looks to the others. Eliot doesn’t respond, but Parker meets his eyes. “I can’t do this alone. Or I could, I think, but I can’t do this and be with you guys and not have that overlap. You know?”

“Makes sense.”

“And I could maybe, you know, I could just take care of them. Of, of her, the kid, and Tyler. If you guys didn’t want to do this, I could just pay for whatever they need. You know, nannies and, and, I don’t know, diapers, and—”

“She can’t go into the system,” Parker says.

“I mean— Baby, we’ve talked about this. It isn’t all—”

“You’re more likely to get a home like the ones I had than the one you had. Okay? That’s just— We can’t let that happen. Eliot, let me see her.”

Eliot hands over the photo, but he still won’t look at Hardison.

“She’s so pretty. Even though she’s all little and fat and out of proportion.”

“She’s a baby, Parker, that’s what they look like.” Hardison can’t resist looking at it again, over her shoulder.

“I like her hair.” Parker traces it with a fingertip.

“I don’t know if I can just leave her with Tyler, either. Honestly, you guys, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I could even be someone’s dad. Beyond, you know, biologically.”

“You would be a great dad,” Eliot says, louder than he means to. “Don’t say— Don’t doubt that. That shouldn’t be part of the equation.”

He presses his lips together, like he regrets speaking.

“What is part of the equation, then? Seriously, I can’t make this decision on my own.”

It takes Eliot a second to realize they’re both staring at him, and he glares back and folds his arms. “You guys have to choose. I can’t— I can’t be part of it. Whatever you guys think is best, I’ll support it. Okay?”

His jaw clenches and he’s almost hugging himself, now, shoulders tight. 

“You’re just as much a part of this relationship as either of us,” Parker argues, bristling.

“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying I’m not— I can’t be helpful with this decision. You guys figure out how you feel about it.”

Hardison looks to Parker. “It’s kind of down to you, mama. This is out of the blue, but I’ve thought about kids before. And I had my Nana. I want to know what you’re thinking.”

Parker drums her fingers on the table and looks at the photo.

“We would need to be more careful,” she says slowly, “with the jobs we take and when we travel. We’d need to vet everyone who sees her and knows about her. She’d be a giant liability.”

“That’s true.”

“Transitioning into a new family will be hard. She’ll be extra fussy, and none of us will know what to do. We’ll have to move in together, right? Or at least spend a lot of time over at your place. If we’re really doing this together, raising her as a family and not just sometimes helping out our boyfriend with his kid.”

Eliot’s knuckles are white on his own arms and his eyes are closed.

“We won’t have days off,” Parker continues. “We won’t really have privacy. We’ll have to talk about and compromise on a lot of stuff that we aren’t really ready for yet. Alec, you’ll have to make her new aliases like you do for us. We can’t get arrested, definitely not all of us together. We’ll be so much more scared than we ever are now because she might be hurt or kidnapped or sick or lost or sad.”

“All true.”

“I don’t ever want her to be sad.” Parker runs her finger over the photo again. “It’s so scary to think about.”

“I know, baby, and it’s okay—”

“I think we should do it.”

Eliot’s eyes fly open.

Hardison startles. “What? Really?”

Parker nods, firmly. “We should do it. I’ve thought about all of the bad sides of it and I still think we should do it. I think we can. I want to. I want to do it.”

“Say it,” Eliot rasps. “You want to what.”

She looks him dead in the eye. “I want to bring in this kid. I want to raise her. I want to be her mom.” She looks up at Hardison. “What about you? What do you want?”

His throat closes up and he has to force his answer out. “I want it. I want to do that. I want to be a dad. Her dad. With you.” He turns to Eliot. “Both of you.”

The whole room is silent for a long moment. Eliot’s eyes are flicking back and forth between them, waiting for something.

“Eliot,” Hardison says. “You in? If you’re not, that’s—”

“I—” Eliot releases his arms, then grabs them again like he’s not sure what to do with his hands. “Are you sure? You mean it, you want this?”

“Yes,” Parker says. She smiles brilliantly. “I’m want to be her mom. Stepmom. Whatever.”

“And, I mean, with me? You know what I am, what I do. You want me to be—”

“Of course,” Hardison cuts him off. “Eliot. Come on. We could never do it without you.”

Eliot gapes at them for a second, then blows out a shaky breath.

“So, you in?”

He twists his hands in his lap, staring down at them, then he looks up at them with wet eyes and smiles and nods. Parker reaches over and takes his hand.

“Yeah,” he breathes out, shaky and tentative. “I’m in. I’m in.”

Hardison crosses to him and pulls him close, grabbing Parker’s free hand. As soon has his face hits Hardison’s shirt, Eliot starts crying like they’ve never seen before, and Hardison starts pressing kisses to the top of his head.

“We’re gonna do this,” he says to them. “We are. We are doing this.”

“Let’s go steal a baby?” Parker tries.

“What?” Hardison sounds scandalized but doesn’t drop her hand. “Woman, we are not stealing—”

He’s drowned out by Eliot’s hiccuping laughter.


End file.
